SOUL and SUBSTANCE: Separation of Church and State: How separate?

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this blog is four-fold:
(1) to recognize that every person functions within a basic paradigm, which affects how all information is processed;
(2) to understand the paradigms of others;
(3) to discuss, in particular, paradigms which are related to science, religion, and philosophy.
(4) to reveal the paradigm shifts in my own life, a process that has completely changed the direction and purpose of my existence.

The purpose of this blog is NOT to convince anyone that their paradigms or beliefs are correct or incorrect. I am hoping for an honest dialog, but the discussions must remain respectful of others, even if there is profound disagreement. If any comments are not respectful, they will be removed.
(Revised 1/13/09)

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Separation of Church and State: How separate?

Rather than put labels on groups, I am going to call one Group A and one, B. People in Group A think that it is wrong to bring any mention of religion into government. People in Group B think that, because religion directs their sense of right and wrong, it is impossible to separate religion from the moral directives that form the basis for legislation. A Group B person in government might say that he cannot separate himself from his faith, so faith has to influence his governmental decisions. However, a Group A person in government would probably say that leaders should uphold what the people democratically decide, regardless of whether they believe it personally or not. A Group B person thinks that the First Ammendment says only that government cannot restrict the practice of one's religion, nor set up a "state religion." However, it makes no prohibition in the other direction: on religion influencing government. A Group A person thinks that the influence should not go in either direction--government should not influence religion and religion should not influence government. Comments, anyone?.........

4 comments:

Troy Camplin said...: The people in group A are naive at best -- dishonest at worst. There are quite a few issues being brought up here. I'll tackle the simplest one first: representative democracy. In a representative democracy, you are not elected to represent the majority opinion of your constituents on each issue. Why have representatives, then? Just have a democracy. The idea behind representative democracy is that you are supposed to, as a candidate, present a package. Your package is supposed to be based on your knowledge of the issues and how to solve them (ideally, though it doesn't always work out). If people like the package, they elect you. If you deliver, the reelect you. So the second part of the argument shows that group A is ignorant of how representative democracy works.

Now to tackle the first part -- the issue of the relationship between religion and government. Historically, there has been no separation. This has caused many problems, not the least of which being people were not allowed to follow their conscience. That is why the 1st Amendment to the Constitution makes it clear that the government cannot set up a state religion. Please note that it does not state anywhere that people cannot bring their religion to Washington, or that they can't allow their religious beliefs to influence their decisions. It simply states that the government cannot set up a state religion. In the body of the Constitution, it does say that the government cannot set up any sort of religious test for office, but that again is a way of preventing the state from setting up a state religion.

To address the issue more broadly, group A is ignorant of the fact that religion and ethics are completely intertwined in the human mind. There is no separating them for humans. That religion may be in the more traditional vein -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. -- but there are also secular forms, such as Marxism and various other philosophies. And Marxism is certainly a religion. There is a founding prophet, religious texts, the fundamental precepts cannot be questioned, and only initiates truly understand the great and wonderful truth given us by the founder. And once it is set up as the state religion, nonbelievers are inevitably slaughtered. There is even a promised heaven -- the Communist stateless utopia at the End of History. It is not uncommon for atheists to immediately pick up on such secular religions -- Sartre was a Marxist, for example. So since humans are fundamentally religious in nature, and we weave together religion and ethics, there is and cannot be any real separation between the two. Thus, to try to make such a separation is impossible. All we can ever really do is choose among religions and morals -- we cannot choose a neutral ground. The best we can do is prevent any one religion from taking over the government and imposing its morals on everyone. People must be allowed to be free to vote their consciences.; January 18, 2008 at 8:54 AM
LucyS said...: There are two paradigms here:

(1) A person in Group B cannot separate his religious convictions from his daily life; hence, it is impossible to conceive of any workplace, government included, where every aspect of his work was not influenced by his faith. Things that a Group B person thinks are morally wrong are the same things that his belief system says are spiritually wrong. It would be impossible to vote in favor of any legislation which permitted these things. The paradigm here is that morality is belief-driven, not culture-driven. It would not matter if the cultural mores said that an action was acceptable if, to the Group B person, it is unacceptable.

(2) A person in Group A, however, tends to accept what is considered "normal" by society. Right and wrong are relative, rather than absolute values and the rational human mind is supreme in its ability to judge them. When there is conflict, it is generally resolved in a "democratic" sort of way. There is usually minimal conflict between religious beliefs and how government should be run because religious beliefs evolve as culture evolves. The paradigm here is that morality is culture-driven, not belief-driven. For this person, changes in culture cause changes in moral values, which then influence how government is managed. However, since government and culture are virtually indistinguishable, there is really no need to insist on true separation of church and state--Only the mechanics need to be separated, since similar moral standards drive them both.; January 19, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Troy Camplin said...: Religion is part of culture. There's no separation, then among ethics, culture, and religion. Insofar as the laws passed by government tell us what we can and cannot do, there is an ethical element to them as well. Thus, in reality, there is and cannot be a true separation among ethics, culture, religion, and government. All are deeply intertwined. However, Nietzsche observed (rightly, I believe) that the stronger government is, the weaker culture is, while the weaker government is, the stronger culture is.; January 19, 2008 at 9:08 PM
wala said...: One of the basic elements of democracy is that the minority’s rights are not a subject to a public vote because a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.
The rights in the civilized societies were found to protect the minorities from oppression by the majorities.
Why?
because the opinion of the majority are not always right and a system built on these opinion is called Fascism or Nazism, as every one knows that the opinion of the majority of the German people were convinced that Hitler’s ideology was right and that if you aren’t Arian then you are a lower human being and then the Jewish minority were forced to follow the majority opinions and get killed.
It was only genetic science that held the undeniable evidence that the genes that control your racial color are totally separate from the set of genes that control the mental abilities.
it is not necessary to have a state religion to have a moral code, there is a lot of moral theories that is built on pure logic and reasonable thinking unlike the divine command moral theory that is based on the Jesus fairy tale, go and study altruism, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, natural law theory, ethical egoism and the social contract theory.
And if you want living successful examples of the separation then look at Switzerland, Holland, Cyprus and Turkey.
Not to mention the many years of failure of religious civilizations, so please doctor T go read more about democracy first because when you elect your next president then you have elected who you think he can serve the constitution better not a package of a new constitution, the constitution that if not for it we wouldn’t have the chance to go through this discussion and my head would be on a pole for not believing in your at best naive or at worst dishonest believes.
M.Wael Alkel
http://science-vs-religion.blogspot.com/; January 22, 2008 at 9:48 AM

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What is Occam's Razor?

(1) Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"): "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", or "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity".

This is often paraphrased as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as a heuristic maxim (rule of thumb) that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity, often or especially in scientific theories.

[From Wikepedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor]

(2) Okham's RazorSharon Kaye
There are so many interesting theories about the nature of reality. How do we decide which to accept and which to reject? As we go through life, we examine new ideas and reexamine old ones in an attempt to establish a suitable collection of beliefs. Sometimes this process feels like walking through the a la carte line in a cafeteria where you can pick and choose any combination you want. Just as a smart eater will use healthy principles to make these choices, a smart thinker will use epistemic principles to evaluate beliefs.
Ockham’s Razor is one of the most important epistemic principles. It states that if you have to choose from some number of competing theories, choose the simplest theory because it is most likely to be true.
Suppose, for example, that the newspaper, which is delivered daily to your doorstep, is missing this morning. There are a number of possible explanations. The delivery person could be ill, the newspaper plant may have shut down, or outer space aliens may have stolen it for the purpose of spying on Earthlings. The obvious choice among these three possibilities is the first. The second and third choices seem increasingly unacceptable. But why? If the choice is mine, what is there to prevent me from accepting the alien theory?
The answer is that the alien theory is too complicated. The illness theory requires me to believe in the presence of a virus, something I already believe in for other reasons. The alien theory, in contrast, requires me to believe in something that I have no other reason to acknowledge. This is to say that the alien theory asks me to adopt more assumptions than does the illness theory.
One might still wonder why added assumptions constitute a problem. After all, it is not as though we are short on brain space. My interest in creativity and originality might lead me to take pride in developing a more complicated theory.
But this would be a mistake. Complication is not something to take pride in because it necessarily increases the risk of error. Each and every belief is a liability insofar as it carries the possibility that it may not be true. The more assumptions you adopt, therefore, the more likely it is that you have unknowingly committed yourself to a falsehood. Falsehood is the great enemy of intelligence. To live intelligently, we must minimize the risk of error as much as we can.
Ockham’s Razor does not state that the world is maximally simple. Clearly, the world is not simple. The world is so complex that it would not be entirely surprising if it turns out that outer space aliens do exist. The point is that we should not move to that conclusion until the evidence forces us there – until we are not able to explain what we observe in a simpler way.
Philosophers have used the Razor in many different ways. Sometimes they use it to defend traditional views. The great twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell appeals to the Razor in his refutation of idealism, the view that the external world does not exist. Russell writes:
Thus every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view, that there really are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data which have an existence not dependent upon our perceiving them. . . . Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it. (The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1968, p. 24.)
On the other hand, philosophers have also used the Razor to attack traditional views. For example, atheists increasingly use it against theism. If we can now explain everything about the world that there is to be explained in purely natural terms, then there is no need for the supernatural assumption. Sure, you can still add it if you want, but it is no longer an intelligent choice.
As this last example suggests, there is room for disagreement over the use of Ockham’s Razor. After all, positing an extra entity can actually simplify a theory. (Imagine trying to do physics without the electron.) Richard Swinburne argues that the God hypothesis performs a similar function. Like any philosophical tool, the Razor is itself controversial, raising some interesting epistemological questions.
One question about the Razor that is rarely asked, however, is this: why is it called a Razor? When I ask my students this question, they often answer that it is called a Razor because it trims the fat. It is true that trimming the fat is an apt metaphor for what the principle of simplicity accomplishes insofar as it signifies getting to the "meat of the matter," the essentials. But who uses a razor for trimming fat? Ask any butcher and you will learn that there are plenty of other more effective tools for such a procedure.
Ockham’s Razor is named after the fourteenth-century logician, William of Ockham. Although he did not invent the principle of simplicity, he used it so effectively and with such devastating effect, that it became indelibly associated with him. Did they use razors for trimming fat back in the Middle Ages?
Of course not. The primary use for the razor in the Middle Ages was the same as it is today: shaving. The problem is that, unlike trimming fat, shaving is not an apt metaphor for what the principle of simplicity accomplishes. Setting aside certain medical contexts, shaving is a cosmetic procedure. We shave to beautify ourselves, not to simplify ourselves. In fact, one could argue that shaving makes personal hygiene considerably more complicated. Nor do we shave to get down to the essentials as though a bald man is somehow more authentic than a hirsute. Shaving is a matter of personal preference. If the epistemic principle in question were about personal preference, then it should have been named the ‘principle of prettiness’. Granted, ‘elegance’ has long been regarded as a desirable quality in theories, and elegance is closely related to simplicity. But since when is hair inelegant? Just what were they thinking when they named Ockham’s Razor?
My own personal theory is that they were thinking about another use of the razor during the Middle Ages. At the end of the fourteenth century, paper was only just being introduced in Europe as a common writing material. Before then, everything was written on parchment, which is made from animal skins. The picture below features a typical medieval scribe:
Notice the tools he holds. In his right hand is a quill for applying ink. In his left hand is a razor. He uses the razor to scrape the parchment clean when he makes an error. His razor is an eraser.
I believe that we would all do well to be more conscious of the principle of simplicity. It is not a matter of personal preference; it is a matter of accuracy. Ockham’s Razor is the way to keep your mind neat and clean.
(Sharon Kaye is assistant professor in philosophy at John Carroll University Cleveland, Ohio)

[From Royal Institute of Philosophy: http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/think/article.php?num=18)

GLOSSARY OF PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS

A list of USEFUL TERMS, from the University of Aberdeen, Philosophy, School of Philosophy, and Religious Studies, Old Brewery • High Street • Aberdeen • AB24 3UB http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/guide/glossary.shtml
DETERMINISM The theory that whatever happens (including human acts) is caused by something else. Physical Determinism maintains that the ‘something else’ is a physical entity or event; Psychological Determinism maintains that the cause (at least, the immediate cause) of a human act is a psychological or mental entity or event (e.g. a desire, a decision).
EMPIRICISM The doctrine that knowledge comes from experience.
EPISTEMOLOGY The branch of philosophy that involves the study of knowledge.
ETHICS The branch of philosophy that deals with moral issues. Key questions in ethics include: What is it right (or wrong) to do? Do the intentions behind an action determine its goodness or does the actual outcome of the action matter more? Are there any universal ethical rules?
FIDEISM Holds that religious beliefs can not be justified by rational means, but only through faith.
LOGIC The branch of philosophy that deals with the formal properties of arguments and the philosophical problems associated with them. Central questions in logic include: What is a good argument? How can we work out if an argument is good or not? What are paradoxes? Can they be resolved? How can we talk meaningfully about objects that don’t exist e.g. Sherlock Holmes, or unicorns?
METAPHYSICS The branch of philosophy which studies the underlying structure of reality. Central questions in metaphysics include: Can we act freely? What is it for something to exist? How are causes related to their effects? What is time? What is space? How is change possible?
NATURAL THEOLOGY Knowledge of God which is obtained by reason alone, without the aid of revelation.
ONTOLOGY The branch of METAPHYSICS which studies the nature of existence. Central questions include: What kinds of objects exist? What is it for something to exist?
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND The branch of philosophy which studies the nature of the mind. Central questions in the philosophy of mind include: Is it possible for a machine to think? How is the mind related to the brain? Do animals have minds? How can I know that anyone else has a mind? (This last one is sometimes called the problem of other minds.)
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION The branch of philosophy which discusses the nature and existence of God. Central questions include: Does God exist? What sort of evidence could justify belief in God? If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world? Is there life after death? Do we have souls? How could we know anything about God?
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE The branch of philosophy which analyses the nature and results of scientific inquiry. Central questions include: Do scientist describe reality or just appearances? Can we have good reason to believe in the existence of unobservable entities (e.g. quarks)? What happens when one scientific theory replaces an older theory?
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY The branch of philosophy that discusses freedom, justice, rights, democracy and other political issues. Central questions include: Is democracy the best form of government? How can we balance rights and responsibilities?
RATIONALISM The doctrine that genuine knowledge, or at least the most significant kind of knowledge, is not established by sense-experience, or at least not by sense-experience alone.... Contrast EMPIRICISM
SOLIPSISM A form of SCEPTICISM. Solipsism is the belief that nothing exists except my mind and the creations of my mind.
THEODICY An argument which tries to explain how a good and all-powerful God could create a world with suffering and evil in it.
UTILITARIANISM The doctrine that acts are right solely in so far as their consequences maximize the general happiness (in some versions: maximize the general pleasure; in some versions: maximize the general welfare). It is controversial whether the general happiness must be interpreted as the happiness of the majority.
VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE An account of meaningfulness which claims that all and only those sentences which can be empirically verified are meaningful.

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Separation of Church and State: How separate?

4 comments:

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